Derek McInnes believes his Aberdeen team are closer to Celtic than they are widely given credit for.

The Dons face Brendan Rodgers' side in the final of the Scottish League Cup on Sunday with McInnes keen to establish an era of silverware success for the Pittodrie club.

It will be the second time in three seasons Aberdeen have made the final of the competition having won their first piece of silverware for 19 years by beating Inverness CT in the 2014 final.

Celtic head into the game as clear leaders at the top of the Scottish Premiership after enjoying an impressive start to the season under Rodgers.

Despite this, McInnes says his team have the quality and confidence to emerge as winners.

"I think it's clear that there are improvements in Celtic," he said.

"Their league form was good last season, they only lost three times, but if they keep going in this vain they're going to be out of sight and I think we all recognise the strengths of that.

"But every team is beatable and we certainly feel that we're closer to them than some people think. It's up to us to show that.

"We need to plant that seed of doubt in them over the 90 minutes and it's important we don't just think we're going there and hoping Celtic don't play well.

"We have to concentrate on our job. We have to play well. We have to have belief in ourselves that we can go on and win the thing."

McInnes went on to highlight improvements made by his squad in the two years since they last won the League Cup.

"The players we've got at the club at the minute, no disrespect to previous squads, I think we've got more confidence, more swagger, more international players, more big game players than we had for the last cup final," he said.